Post by styg on Jul 19, 2014 7:44:41 GMT -6
The phone rang, and Jay stretched out his hand to pick it up.
Pain exploded down his arm.
It had been months now since Jay Pride's shoulder got separated in a match with Chandler Scott - he made sure to remember that it was 'in a match with Chandler Scott' rather than 'at the hands of Chandler Scott', because while Chandler liked to claim responsibility for it, it had been a complete accident - and he still kept instinctively trying to do things with that arm. It had been out of the sling for a few weeks now, but was still far from 100%, and needed care and patience in building the strength back up. Something in his subconscious just wasn't getting the message, though, and kept making the arm snap around the place like it would if it was healthy.
"Fsssssh..." he hissed as he brought the phone up to his ear with his left hand, "Ow! Fuck! Hello?"
He cursed internally. Not a good way to answer the phone if this was a potential investor or prospective trainee.
The voice on the other end of the line said: "Hey. It's me." Matty - just Laurel's little brother, thank god. "Is Leanne there?" huffed Matty quickly. Clearly something was up. Any other day, Matty would have made some wisecrack about Jay still trying to do stuff with his broken arm. But now he sounded panicky and breathless.
"She's gone out for some food," said Jay, "'bout... quarter of an hour ago? She'll be back soon though." Leanne had been very good today, going into the city with Jay in the morning and spending all day at his gym, preparing for her upcoming matches. She was training smart, too, using rest breaks and switching her focus around in just the way he'd taught her all those years ago. He was glad to see it; it was a habit she'd fallen out of this year.
Matty grunted in annoyance. Jay fancied that it was tinged with desperation. "Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks," grumbled Laurel's half-brother, "I already tried her mobile. It's switched off."
"What's up? What's happened?"
"It's Laurel," said Matty, "She's done it again."
"Done what again?" asked Jay. After all, Laurel did so much...
There was a thump from somewhere down the phone line. "She's fucked, Jay. She's paralytic. She's puked all down the stairs, she's pissed herself... smells like she's shit herself, too. And everyone's out."
Jay pinched the bridge of his nose. Laurel had never been what one might call a restrained drinker, but to balance that out she'd always had the constitution of a horse. It took a lot to get her falling-down-puking drunk, and in truth, he'd only seen it a couple of times. And suddenly this was the third time in the last month she'd got like this.
"So what happened?" he asked, glancing at the clock for a moment. It was somewhere between half four and quarter to five.
"She got back from the airport about 9am," explained Matty, "First thing she fuckin' did was crack open a beer... minute the clock hit noon she dragged me down the pub, we had about four, five pints there, went back and she hit a bottle of cachaça-"
"What, neat?!
Matty snorted and said, "I wish. She was makin' caipirinhas but y'know obviously we ain't got any bloody sugar syrup so her bein' a drunk fuckin' genius decides peach schnapps is sweet enough..."
"Oh my god, not that fuckin' peach schnapps that's been in the back of the cupboard since before we moved in?" The label said peach schnapps, at least. But Jay wouldn't have been shocked to learn that it was actually some kind of peach-scented drain cleaner. He and Laurel had been the only people in the household brave enough to try it, and Laurel had been the only one dumb enough to drink more than a sip of it. But until now, even she'd seen it as a last resort when the house was completely empty of all alcohol, caffeine, cigarettes, painkillers and other drugs.
"Yeah, like... a shitload of it."
"Aw, bloody hell," said Jay with an exhalation somewhere between a weary sigh and an impressed gasp, "That stuff must be like battery acid by now. It's just been sat there all this time..."
"Well, there's only about half a glass left now," said Matty, his voice getting manic.
"Oh Jesus..." muttered Jay under his breath, "Okay, okay, where is she now?"
"Still lyin' on the stairs."
Of course she was. "Are the stairs still covered in sick?"
"Yep. So's she. And piss, and shit."
Jay rolled his eyes. "So she has... y'know... shit herself?"
"I don't really wanna find out, Jay," pointed out Matty, with a little more petulance than Jay considered helpful right now despite Matty's obvious concern for his sister, "But I'm pretty sure."
It took a moment for Jay to ask the next question. Last time she'd got like this she'd gone into shock, and they'd all been legitimately worried that she was going to die. Matty didn't sound like he thought that was a danger here and now, but maybe his stress was masking it. Better to be sure...
"How is she?" Jay ventured, uneasily.
"Snoring her head off. She hasn't gone pale, she isn't shakin'. Her pupils are a little bit dilated but not much. She's not, y'know, the way she was last time," said Matty, and Jay's heart sank back to its normal resting place from halfway up his gullet, "She's just fuckin' lost control of her body this time."
Jay adopted an authoritative tone. "Okay. I can't leave the gym right now, but I'll tell Leanne to get home as soon as she's back. Until then can you get Laurel into bed, or onto the bathroom floor, or something?"
Matty let out a moan of disappointment. "Do you have any idea how heavy she is?"
"A hundred and forty-seven pounds, least last time she weighed herself here at the gym," deadpanned Jay, "And at this point in your training, Matty, you should be able to lift up a person twenty pounds lighter'n you."
"She's drunk, though. People always get heavier when they're drunk."
"Aye, true enough... well, can you get her cleaned up, at least? And the stairs. Get her out her clothes, wipe her down, get as much of her gack off the stairs as you can. I'll be home about half six, an' I'll get straight onto vacuuming and shampooing the carpet if you haven't been able to."
"She's my sister!" cried Matty, the change in his pitch and volume dramatic, "I don't give a fuck about the stairs! I just want her to be alright!"
"Right, but panicking won't help her," said Jay patiently, "If you can't move her at least try to make her comfortable. Keep her from slidin' around in her own sick an' that. An' keep an eye on her temperature."
"I have been," said Matty, his tone subsiding, "It's okay right now. I got a blanket out already, just in case."
"Okay, good... oh shit, someone's at the door," said Jay suddenly, as he heard a knock. He craned his neck to peer through the window of his office door, then announced, "I think it's Leanne. I'll send her home right away, aye? You make sure Laurel's okay until she gets there."
"Yeah," said Matty flatly, the last of his energy having escaped him in his sudden outburst, "Yeah. Tell Leanne to text me an ETA, yeh?"
"Will do. See you in a couple hours, an' good luck."
"Don't say that. Don't make this a matter of chance."
And before Jay could reply, Matty hung up.
Leanne Evangelista picked her way through the debris and sat down on the edge of Laurel's bed gently. The golden evening light streaming through the curtains loaned a dreamlike quality to the air, and indeed, the world felt like some kind of surreal lucid dream to Leanne right now. Even after a long, hot shower, the physical exhaustion of her training and the emotional exhaustion of moving, cleaning and worrying about Laurel Anne Hardy - who'd remained out cold the whole time - had shorted out her ability to separate reality from the abstractions of her mind.
Laurel turned over in her sleep and snorted.
Leanne just stared down at her best friend - at the faint flickering of her eyelids, and the irregular heaving of her chest, and the... stuff still crusted in her hairline and the folds of her ears. Leanne shook her head sadly. This wasn't like Laurel. Getting paralytically drunk twice in one month? Probably three times, actually. She'd gone out with Whiskey Ayano last week, and everyone knew that going out with Whiskey meant an alcohopocalypse. Who knew how drunk they'd got then? Laurel and Whiskey certainly wouldn't.
Mind you... Laurel had been drinking more lately, just in general. And popping more pain pills, and her promise to cut back on the ciggies hadn't exactly gone to plan. And as for the amount of cocaine Laurel was shovelling up her nose these days...
"Mmm..." mumbled Laurel, frowning and screwing up her eyes.
Leanne cleared her throat. "Hey hon," she said softly.
Laurel blinked open her eyes, and smiled weakly as she took in Leanne's face.
"Hey."
"How you feelin'?"
Laurel started to answer, but was cut off by a coughing fit. Leanne stroked the side of her head until it was over and Laurel said, with a hoarse groan and an incongruous smirk, "...like shit..."
"I'll bet."
"My head is... well, I can't even think of a funny analogy," laughed Laurel, her eyes slightly unfocused.
"Somethin' about roadworks?" offered Leanne.
"Nah, nah," slurred Laurel, reaching for her cigarettes, "We ain't at that point yet. Still underwater right now."
"I'm not surprised," mumbled Leanne, chewing her lower lip slightly, "You started drinkin' about twelve hours ago and Matty says you were hittin' it hard."
Laurel rolled back, lying her head against the pillow. Then she glanced down at her own body for a moment, finally seeming to realise that she was naked. "Oh hell, did I throw up?"
"Mmm, everywhere," her friend told her, "Your clothes are in the wash. Jay reckons the stairs carpet's gonna be stained."
"Uggggh, I can't believe it..."
"Yeah," agreed Leanne, "Matty told me what you drank today. I think it'd've fuckin' killed me." Laurel indicated that she wanted a lighter from the desk, and Leanne obliged. She watched Laurel light a ciggie, then added, "Y'know, you should treat him better."
"I treat him alright."
"Not like you should," said Leanne sadly. "I love Lily so, so much, but until Starr kidnapped her I never realised how precious it is to have someone like that in your life. So... fragile, y'know?" She stopped there, before she started crying. Her eyes were already starting to itch.
Through the drunken haze of Laurel's forebrain, that word came back to her. The word that was spending more time in her consciousness than any other lately.
Psychopathy.
She was trying, she was really trying, not to be that person... not to be Alexander StarrZoë. Not to be Malcolm Drake or Arcadia Chavez or Christum Furor. But her friends and family didn't understand how hard it was... how that darkness nipped at the edges of her mind, how much she had to focus sometimes to keep from giving in to that part of her that said life would be so much easier if you just wrapped your hands around the throats of the people who did these things to you and your friends like kidnapping your loved ones or beating up your brother and started squeezing your thumbs into their windpipe until you felt the pop of collapse and you kept on digging, feeling the pressure of their skin under your nails and the pain in your nails was electricity and you kept on digging... they didn't understand how much energy it took to stand in the light without giving into the temptation to fall right into it, to fight the urge to dare the Sun to a staring contest. They didn't understand, and they got mad any time she faltered even the littlest bit. It was them she was doing it for anyway, right? The least they could do was appreciate it.
Still... maybe she wasn't as demonstratively loving with her brother as she could and should be. He was always there when she got home, always there to drop everything and go to the pub with her or help her out with a promo. Her rock. And when Leanne told her she wasn't being empathetic enough, she tended to listen. Something about Leanne Mirasol Fontanilla Evangelista scrambled up Laurel Saiko Yunokawa's normally iron mind, and as unpleasant as that could be sometimes, it was also necessary sometimes.
"I guess maybe I could be a little more appreciative sometimes," she conceded.
"Not just him, Ell. All of us. Me. Jay. Lily. Mia. Even Wlad an' Jem. An' what about your sister? How often do you even go an' see her these days? This is the second... third? Second or third time in one month that you've literally nearly drank yourself to death."
"C'mon," protested Laurel, easing herself upright and simultaneously trying to find something to tap the ash from her cigarette into, "Takes a hell of a lot more than that to-"
"We're not teenagers anymore," cut in Leanne.
"No, I know, Ell," replied Laurel, closing her eyes, "You don't need to give me that speech about how our bodies are on the downward slope now, because I know. I just..."
"It's not just the drink, Laurel," said Leanne, her voice cracking, "It's the coke, the painkillers... all the deathmatches..." Flying across the world from match to match, never giving her body the chance to rest, never mind heal up, so subsidising it with drugs and pretending they wouldn't charge interest... bodies starting to slide from the mid-twenties onwards was something else Leanne had anxiety about, but right now, Laurel's habits were more important.
Laurel blew out a wire-thin stream of smoke. "We've had this conversation how many times now? And with Matty, and Jay..."
"Then how many is it gonna take for you to do somethin' about it?" demanded Leanne, "How many times do you have to nearly die before you'll listen to us?"
Laurel opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again. Arguing was pointless. They'd just end up going round and round the same words they had already gone round a million times before. Her head was swimming too much for that.
She glanced sideways at Leanne's intake of breath. "Why'd you have to antagonise Kam like that?"
"What? I did it for you. He had no right to attack you."
"Oh, come on," said Leanne, "Before that. Backstage."
Laurel thought about it honestly and clearly, or at least as clearly as she could right now, and simply said: "It's fun. An' don't gimme that, Ell. You were right there with me pokin' him as well."
"Yeah, well... I shouldn't have," Leanne admitted readily, "An' you know what he's like. You know how fucked in the head he is."
Unable to keep herself from laughing, Laurel said, "Leanne... we're all fucked in the head. Remember what Sal an' Amy used to tell us?"
"I know, I know," said Leanne, and she repeated the mantra: "'Psychologically healthy people don't become pro wrestlers.' I know. But Kam's a step crazier than most."
"No he ain't," said Laurel matter-of-factly, "He's the guy that shit happens to. Hunter shot him. Stuffed him in a car boot an' drove him off a bridge. The Michaelses tried to castrate him with bolt cutters. X broke his fuckin' neck. Remember that shit?" she insisted, "Kam never took things that far, even when people took it that far on him."
"Yeah, well," countered Leanne, "He fuckin' hates us for killing GEW, though."
"As much as he hated Hunter or Xavier Michaels?"
Leanne fell silent as she considered that point, then said quietly, "Back then he didn't have Daisuke Iwakuma whisperin' in his ear 24/7. The Kameron Chase we've ran into at EXODUS shows these last couple months is not the same Kameron Chase we feuded with back in GEW's last days, an' he sure as fuck ain't the same Kameron Chase who Hunter tried to kill."
"I'm aware," said Laurel with remarkable patience and determination considering her glassy eyes, "An' doesn't that make things interesting..." she mused.
"What? Never mind him - you're fucked in the head."
"C'mon, you know his style," said Laurel, sounding as reasonable as anyone could while slurring, "Sneak attacks, tryin' to undermine our confidence... we can handle that. We handled Alex StarrZoë, we handled The CarnEvil Connection-"
"Okay - Lily, the person I care about more than anyone else in the world, is scarred for life 'cause of Starr," gasped Leanne incredulously, "The things she went through are never gonna go away. You understand that, right? That happened 'cause of - us." She wanted to say 'you', but that was unfair in more sense than one right now... even though it had been primarily Laurel's fault. But she did add, "And you're lucky your own brother didn't go through the same thing when the Carnies got to him." Being assaulted and hospitalised by associates of The CarnEvil Connection was, in fact, what had prompted Matty to take up wrestling training - he'd confided to Leanne he'd never be a liability to Laurel again, and Leanne had almost cried.
"Okay then, Malcolm Drake, Arcadia Chavez, Yoshihiro Ojima... we can handle them," insisted Laurel, "And they're all a lot more fucked than Kam."
"You can handle them, Ell... they're all your enemies. Not ours."
"Okay, Chaths!" continued Laurel, "You beat Chaths on the last FGA show, and Chaths is about as proper a headcase as you'll ever meet."
Leanne shook her head and pointed out, "Chaths wasn't tryna kill me..."
"You were in the ring with him, Ell. He was tryna kill you. Fuckin'... QED."
Leanne snorted in amusement. "What does that even mean?" she asked, and the words coming out of her own mouth surprised her. Some part of her must have wanted to change the subject.
"Means it's self-evident," muttered Laurel absently as she stubbed her cigarette out.
"No, I know what it means," said Leanne, "What I mean is, what does it mean? What does it stand for?"
Laurel turned to face her again, slowly, and suggested: "...it hasn't got a chair?"
After struggling to find a reply to that for several seconds, Leanne just shook her head and closed her mouth while Laurel picked a fleck of dried sick out of her hair. She grimaced at it and dropped it into the empty beer can she was using as an ashtray, then said, "Listen, Jonathan wants to talk to us before the show."
"To us, or to you?" asked Leanne hesitantly.
Laurel paused for a moment to think about. He hadn't actually specified. "To both of us, I'm sure," she said confidently.
"What about?"
"I've got an idea..." murmured Laurel.
There was a pause.
"...well?"
"Well what?" asked Laurel absently, rooting down the side of her bed.
"Are you gonna tell me, or what?"
"Oh," said Laurel, her voice muffled, "It's prob'ly about Kam, innit?"
"Yeah?"
Laurel didn't reply until she'd re-emerged, triumphantly holding half a bottle of stale cola. After a drink, she asked, "C'mon, how do Kameron an' Jonathan feel about each other?" And she offered the bottle across to Leanne, who politely declined.
Frowning a little at why she'd be asked something so obvious, and wondering whether it was a trick question, Leanne replied hesitantly, "...they hate each other's guts. They always have."
"Exactly," said Laurel, "Look at it like this. Jonathan's busy with this shit with Christum an' SalTal an' Savannah, right? But at the same time he's got HATE on his back. And Kameron and Daisuke both fuckin'... despise Jonathan. Like, mortally, as far as I can tell. They ain't gonna let up on him just because he's got Gods & Monsters to worry about. Fact it's the perfect time for HATE to strike, innit?"
"I... guess?"
Laurel nodded and said slyly, "An' we're a nice little distraction for Kam right now, aren't we..."
"Ooohh... no," said Leanne slowly and anxiously, "No, we ain't mercenaries, Ell. That ain't our fight. Why should we make it our fight? That just puts us in harm's way for not even any incentive."
"We're getting a Tag Team Championship shot in our debut match, aren't we?" grinned Laurel, "Sounds like incentive to me. Anyway, wasn't this the point when we got the band back together?" - 'the band' meaning The Asylum, the eight-strong faction which so many years ago had ended the wrestling company of which Kam was the poster boy and golden hero, Global Extreme Wrestling - and in 2013 reformed to keep AbominationZ from repeating the same mistake and destroying WARPED Wrestling. "We promised to save promotions from the factions that wanted to... to cannibalise 'em, right? But we didn't help EXODUS against LEGION last year, did we..."
"Yeah, 'cause we were barely managin' against AbominationZ. Fuck... we didn't have enough to protect everyone even then."
"Right... but now a new enemy rises in the land of exiles, y'know?" Laurel was beaming at this point, and she had that edge in her cold grey eyes that made Leanne shiver. "An' this time we got no AbominationZ to worry about..."
"Look, can't we go one step at a time?" pleaded Leanne. "We don't need some... big crusade, right? We're still tryin' to settle into EXODUS, and FGA... I mean, listen, if you wanna call up Rowan an' get the heavy artillery in, I'm leavin' that up to you, but... I don't wanna do anythin' that might put Lily in danger. Or Matty," she added, playing up the meaningfulness of that final word.
"Well... Let's just see what Jon has to say at the weekend before we make any decisions," Laurel conceded, although not convincingly enough for Leanne's tastes, "Hell, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he wants to talk about some'n else."
"I really, really hope so," said Leanne with the strain evident in her voice, "'Cause you've already got me about a fuckin' mile out my comfort zone with makin' me sign on with two more companies." A stretch of the truth in both cases; Laurel had negotiated with FGA as she described it (or charmed them as Leanne suspected) into entering Leanne into this year's Lion's Cup tournament - without consulting Leanne first. Of course, they'd had to call to confirm with her that she was interested, but that was the first Leanne knew of it. As for EXODUS, that had been more straightforward - Laurel had just badgered Leanne until she gave in.
"And it's workin', ain't it?" said Laurel pointedly, "You're in the Lion's Cup semifinals in FGA, we got a title shot in EXODUS..."
"Hah, an' I have to pretend to be confident when I'm prolly gonna blow 'em both..." said Leanne, screwing up her face, "I waltz into these companies, straight into big shots... nobody's gonna take me seriously. The other three teams must be lookin' at this tag match askin' why the fuck we're even in it."
Laurel regarded her for a moment, then asked, "Listen, Christum Furor's the World Champion, right?"
"Right?" sniffed Leanne.
"Well, you've beat him before, haven't you?"
"I eliminated him from a battle royale, Ell. That ain't the same." Not to mention, it was the body Christum Furor inhabited, but the man controlling it was very different back then...
"A battle royale you won," Laurel reminded her, "An' converted into a title you still hold. Tell them that. Tell 'em that to be the Commonwealth Champion you beat the current World Champion. That'll make 'em take you seriously."
Leanne considered this, then shook her head sadly. "...I'm not sure... you know what Riley said about me in FGA. About-" -she hesitated- "-me bein'... y'know. Cocky. Arrogant. I don't want people to think that..."
Laurel sighed. Leanne's insecurity did her head in... plus she had a loss to avenge to Riley Owens herself, after he'd pinned her tag team partner Annie Zellor in the finals of Dynamic Duos. She wasn't too concerned with wins and losses, but losing in the finals of the same tournament two years in a row... "Riley can eat a dick for sayin' that, Ell. He doesn't know you," she grunted in annoyance, "Nobody's gonna think you're arrogant for pointin' out that you hold a win over Christum Furor. It's just a fact."
Scanning her friend's eyes, Leanne asked shakily, "...are you sure?"
"Trust me. Most of EXODUS fuckin' loathes him anyway, right?"
"I guess..."
"An' you kick ass," said Laurel, getting animated and enthusiastic again, "You're my number one ninja, Ell. I know you can win Lion's Cup an' I know we can be EXODUS tag champs together."
Leanne bit her lip as she looked up at her. "...you think so?"
"I just said, I know so," replied Laurel, and she leaned over, calling out, "C'mon, give us a hug!"
And she wrapped her arms tightly around Leanne - who made a choking sound. "Oh my god, you fuckin' arsehole bitch! I've already had two showers today. Now I need another one."
"Well, I need one first," said Laurel firmly, still holding Leanne close, "I'm covered in sick."
"And worse..." mumbled Leanne under her breath.
"What was that?" asked Laurel innocently, "Didn't catch it."
"I said so am I, now," replied Leanne quickly, "You've just got your sick all over me, so I should get to go first."
"It's dry, Ell," replied Laurel, rolling her eyes, "Nothin' got on you. Stop spazzin' out."
"Germs will've, though."
"Oh, what?" sighed Laurel, "Germs get on you all the time, Ell. That's life. They get on you... bloody... walkin' down the street. I'm goin' in the shower right now. You're welcome to join me if you're that bothered, but no HLA, alright?"
"Oh my god, you're disgustin'!" cried Leanne, and finally pushed Laurel away. She shook her head, staring at the floor, then asked, "One serious question, though.... what the hell does QED stand for?"
"Well I haven't got a fuckin' clue, have I?" shrugged Laurel, pulling another cigarette from the packet. She checked the time on her phone, then blew out air through her mouth before tilting her head in Leanne's direction and suggesting, vaguely but optimistically, "Fancy a drink? I could really do with a hair of the dog..."
Pain exploded down his arm.
It had been months now since Jay Pride's shoulder got separated in a match with Chandler Scott - he made sure to remember that it was 'in a match with Chandler Scott' rather than 'at the hands of Chandler Scott', because while Chandler liked to claim responsibility for it, it had been a complete accident - and he still kept instinctively trying to do things with that arm. It had been out of the sling for a few weeks now, but was still far from 100%, and needed care and patience in building the strength back up. Something in his subconscious just wasn't getting the message, though, and kept making the arm snap around the place like it would if it was healthy.
"Fsssssh..." he hissed as he brought the phone up to his ear with his left hand, "Ow! Fuck! Hello?"
He cursed internally. Not a good way to answer the phone if this was a potential investor or prospective trainee.
The voice on the other end of the line said: "Hey. It's me." Matty - just Laurel's little brother, thank god. "Is Leanne there?" huffed Matty quickly. Clearly something was up. Any other day, Matty would have made some wisecrack about Jay still trying to do stuff with his broken arm. But now he sounded panicky and breathless.
"She's gone out for some food," said Jay, "'bout... quarter of an hour ago? She'll be back soon though." Leanne had been very good today, going into the city with Jay in the morning and spending all day at his gym, preparing for her upcoming matches. She was training smart, too, using rest breaks and switching her focus around in just the way he'd taught her all those years ago. He was glad to see it; it was a habit she'd fallen out of this year.
Matty grunted in annoyance. Jay fancied that it was tinged with desperation. "Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks," grumbled Laurel's half-brother, "I already tried her mobile. It's switched off."
"What's up? What's happened?"
"It's Laurel," said Matty, "She's done it again."
"Done what again?" asked Jay. After all, Laurel did so much...
There was a thump from somewhere down the phone line. "She's fucked, Jay. She's paralytic. She's puked all down the stairs, she's pissed herself... smells like she's shit herself, too. And everyone's out."
Jay pinched the bridge of his nose. Laurel had never been what one might call a restrained drinker, but to balance that out she'd always had the constitution of a horse. It took a lot to get her falling-down-puking drunk, and in truth, he'd only seen it a couple of times. And suddenly this was the third time in the last month she'd got like this.
"So what happened?" he asked, glancing at the clock for a moment. It was somewhere between half four and quarter to five.
"She got back from the airport about 9am," explained Matty, "First thing she fuckin' did was crack open a beer... minute the clock hit noon she dragged me down the pub, we had about four, five pints there, went back and she hit a bottle of cachaça-"
"What, neat?!
Matty snorted and said, "I wish. She was makin' caipirinhas but y'know obviously we ain't got any bloody sugar syrup so her bein' a drunk fuckin' genius decides peach schnapps is sweet enough..."
"Oh my god, not that fuckin' peach schnapps that's been in the back of the cupboard since before we moved in?" The label said peach schnapps, at least. But Jay wouldn't have been shocked to learn that it was actually some kind of peach-scented drain cleaner. He and Laurel had been the only people in the household brave enough to try it, and Laurel had been the only one dumb enough to drink more than a sip of it. But until now, even she'd seen it as a last resort when the house was completely empty of all alcohol, caffeine, cigarettes, painkillers and other drugs.
"Yeah, like... a shitload of it."
"Aw, bloody hell," said Jay with an exhalation somewhere between a weary sigh and an impressed gasp, "That stuff must be like battery acid by now. It's just been sat there all this time..."
"Well, there's only about half a glass left now," said Matty, his voice getting manic.
"Oh Jesus..." muttered Jay under his breath, "Okay, okay, where is she now?"
"Still lyin' on the stairs."
Of course she was. "Are the stairs still covered in sick?"
"Yep. So's she. And piss, and shit."
Jay rolled his eyes. "So she has... y'know... shit herself?"
"I don't really wanna find out, Jay," pointed out Matty, with a little more petulance than Jay considered helpful right now despite Matty's obvious concern for his sister, "But I'm pretty sure."
It took a moment for Jay to ask the next question. Last time she'd got like this she'd gone into shock, and they'd all been legitimately worried that she was going to die. Matty didn't sound like he thought that was a danger here and now, but maybe his stress was masking it. Better to be sure...
"How is she?" Jay ventured, uneasily.
"Snoring her head off. She hasn't gone pale, she isn't shakin'. Her pupils are a little bit dilated but not much. She's not, y'know, the way she was last time," said Matty, and Jay's heart sank back to its normal resting place from halfway up his gullet, "She's just fuckin' lost control of her body this time."
Jay adopted an authoritative tone. "Okay. I can't leave the gym right now, but I'll tell Leanne to get home as soon as she's back. Until then can you get Laurel into bed, or onto the bathroom floor, or something?"
Matty let out a moan of disappointment. "Do you have any idea how heavy she is?"
"A hundred and forty-seven pounds, least last time she weighed herself here at the gym," deadpanned Jay, "And at this point in your training, Matty, you should be able to lift up a person twenty pounds lighter'n you."
"She's drunk, though. People always get heavier when they're drunk."
"Aye, true enough... well, can you get her cleaned up, at least? And the stairs. Get her out her clothes, wipe her down, get as much of her gack off the stairs as you can. I'll be home about half six, an' I'll get straight onto vacuuming and shampooing the carpet if you haven't been able to."
"She's my sister!" cried Matty, the change in his pitch and volume dramatic, "I don't give a fuck about the stairs! I just want her to be alright!"
"Right, but panicking won't help her," said Jay patiently, "If you can't move her at least try to make her comfortable. Keep her from slidin' around in her own sick an' that. An' keep an eye on her temperature."
"I have been," said Matty, his tone subsiding, "It's okay right now. I got a blanket out already, just in case."
"Okay, good... oh shit, someone's at the door," said Jay suddenly, as he heard a knock. He craned his neck to peer through the window of his office door, then announced, "I think it's Leanne. I'll send her home right away, aye? You make sure Laurel's okay until she gets there."
"Yeah," said Matty flatly, the last of his energy having escaped him in his sudden outburst, "Yeah. Tell Leanne to text me an ETA, yeh?"
"Will do. See you in a couple hours, an' good luck."
"Don't say that. Don't make this a matter of chance."
And before Jay could reply, Matty hung up.
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Leanne Evangelista picked her way through the debris and sat down on the edge of Laurel's bed gently. The golden evening light streaming through the curtains loaned a dreamlike quality to the air, and indeed, the world felt like some kind of surreal lucid dream to Leanne right now. Even after a long, hot shower, the physical exhaustion of her training and the emotional exhaustion of moving, cleaning and worrying about Laurel Anne Hardy - who'd remained out cold the whole time - had shorted out her ability to separate reality from the abstractions of her mind.
Laurel turned over in her sleep and snorted.
Leanne just stared down at her best friend - at the faint flickering of her eyelids, and the irregular heaving of her chest, and the... stuff still crusted in her hairline and the folds of her ears. Leanne shook her head sadly. This wasn't like Laurel. Getting paralytically drunk twice in one month? Probably three times, actually. She'd gone out with Whiskey Ayano last week, and everyone knew that going out with Whiskey meant an alcohopocalypse. Who knew how drunk they'd got then? Laurel and Whiskey certainly wouldn't.
Mind you... Laurel had been drinking more lately, just in general. And popping more pain pills, and her promise to cut back on the ciggies hadn't exactly gone to plan. And as for the amount of cocaine Laurel was shovelling up her nose these days...
"Mmm..." mumbled Laurel, frowning and screwing up her eyes.
Leanne cleared her throat. "Hey hon," she said softly.
Laurel blinked open her eyes, and smiled weakly as she took in Leanne's face.
"Hey."
"How you feelin'?"
Laurel started to answer, but was cut off by a coughing fit. Leanne stroked the side of her head until it was over and Laurel said, with a hoarse groan and an incongruous smirk, "...like shit..."
"I'll bet."
"My head is... well, I can't even think of a funny analogy," laughed Laurel, her eyes slightly unfocused.
"Somethin' about roadworks?" offered Leanne.
"Nah, nah," slurred Laurel, reaching for her cigarettes, "We ain't at that point yet. Still underwater right now."
"I'm not surprised," mumbled Leanne, chewing her lower lip slightly, "You started drinkin' about twelve hours ago and Matty says you were hittin' it hard."
Laurel rolled back, lying her head against the pillow. Then she glanced down at her own body for a moment, finally seeming to realise that she was naked. "Oh hell, did I throw up?"
"Mmm, everywhere," her friend told her, "Your clothes are in the wash. Jay reckons the stairs carpet's gonna be stained."
"Uggggh, I can't believe it..."
"Yeah," agreed Leanne, "Matty told me what you drank today. I think it'd've fuckin' killed me." Laurel indicated that she wanted a lighter from the desk, and Leanne obliged. She watched Laurel light a ciggie, then added, "Y'know, you should treat him better."
"I treat him alright."
"Not like you should," said Leanne sadly. "I love Lily so, so much, but until Starr kidnapped her I never realised how precious it is to have someone like that in your life. So... fragile, y'know?" She stopped there, before she started crying. Her eyes were already starting to itch.
Through the drunken haze of Laurel's forebrain, that word came back to her. The word that was spending more time in her consciousness than any other lately.
Psychopathy.
She was trying, she was really trying, not to be that person... not to be Alexander StarrZoë. Not to be Malcolm Drake or Arcadia Chavez or Christum Furor. But her friends and family didn't understand how hard it was... how that darkness nipped at the edges of her mind, how much she had to focus sometimes to keep from giving in to that part of her that said life would be so much easier if you just wrapped your hands around the throats of the people who did these things to you and your friends like kidnapping your loved ones or beating up your brother and started squeezing your thumbs into their windpipe until you felt the pop of collapse and you kept on digging, feeling the pressure of their skin under your nails and the pain in your nails was electricity and you kept on digging... they didn't understand how much energy it took to stand in the light without giving into the temptation to fall right into it, to fight the urge to dare the Sun to a staring contest. They didn't understand, and they got mad any time she faltered even the littlest bit. It was them she was doing it for anyway, right? The least they could do was appreciate it.
Still... maybe she wasn't as demonstratively loving with her brother as she could and should be. He was always there when she got home, always there to drop everything and go to the pub with her or help her out with a promo. Her rock. And when Leanne told her she wasn't being empathetic enough, she tended to listen. Something about Leanne Mirasol Fontanilla Evangelista scrambled up Laurel Saiko Yunokawa's normally iron mind, and as unpleasant as that could be sometimes, it was also necessary sometimes.
"I guess maybe I could be a little more appreciative sometimes," she conceded.
"Not just him, Ell. All of us. Me. Jay. Lily. Mia. Even Wlad an' Jem. An' what about your sister? How often do you even go an' see her these days? This is the second... third? Second or third time in one month that you've literally nearly drank yourself to death."
"C'mon," protested Laurel, easing herself upright and simultaneously trying to find something to tap the ash from her cigarette into, "Takes a hell of a lot more than that to-"
"We're not teenagers anymore," cut in Leanne.
"No, I know, Ell," replied Laurel, closing her eyes, "You don't need to give me that speech about how our bodies are on the downward slope now, because I know. I just..."
"It's not just the drink, Laurel," said Leanne, her voice cracking, "It's the coke, the painkillers... all the deathmatches..." Flying across the world from match to match, never giving her body the chance to rest, never mind heal up, so subsidising it with drugs and pretending they wouldn't charge interest... bodies starting to slide from the mid-twenties onwards was something else Leanne had anxiety about, but right now, Laurel's habits were more important.
Laurel blew out a wire-thin stream of smoke. "We've had this conversation how many times now? And with Matty, and Jay..."
"Then how many is it gonna take for you to do somethin' about it?" demanded Leanne, "How many times do you have to nearly die before you'll listen to us?"
Laurel opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again. Arguing was pointless. They'd just end up going round and round the same words they had already gone round a million times before. Her head was swimming too much for that.
She glanced sideways at Leanne's intake of breath. "Why'd you have to antagonise Kam like that?"
"What? I did it for you. He had no right to attack you."
"Oh, come on," said Leanne, "Before that. Backstage."
Laurel thought about it honestly and clearly, or at least as clearly as she could right now, and simply said: "It's fun. An' don't gimme that, Ell. You were right there with me pokin' him as well."
"Yeah, well... I shouldn't have," Leanne admitted readily, "An' you know what he's like. You know how fucked in the head he is."
Unable to keep herself from laughing, Laurel said, "Leanne... we're all fucked in the head. Remember what Sal an' Amy used to tell us?"
"I know, I know," said Leanne, and she repeated the mantra: "'Psychologically healthy people don't become pro wrestlers.' I know. But Kam's a step crazier than most."
"No he ain't," said Laurel matter-of-factly, "He's the guy that shit happens to. Hunter shot him. Stuffed him in a car boot an' drove him off a bridge. The Michaelses tried to castrate him with bolt cutters. X broke his fuckin' neck. Remember that shit?" she insisted, "Kam never took things that far, even when people took it that far on him."
"Yeah, well," countered Leanne, "He fuckin' hates us for killing GEW, though."
"As much as he hated Hunter or Xavier Michaels?"
Leanne fell silent as she considered that point, then said quietly, "Back then he didn't have Daisuke Iwakuma whisperin' in his ear 24/7. The Kameron Chase we've ran into at EXODUS shows these last couple months is not the same Kameron Chase we feuded with back in GEW's last days, an' he sure as fuck ain't the same Kameron Chase who Hunter tried to kill."
"I'm aware," said Laurel with remarkable patience and determination considering her glassy eyes, "An' doesn't that make things interesting..." she mused.
"What? Never mind him - you're fucked in the head."
"C'mon, you know his style," said Laurel, sounding as reasonable as anyone could while slurring, "Sneak attacks, tryin' to undermine our confidence... we can handle that. We handled Alex StarrZoë, we handled The CarnEvil Connection-"
"Okay - Lily, the person I care about more than anyone else in the world, is scarred for life 'cause of Starr," gasped Leanne incredulously, "The things she went through are never gonna go away. You understand that, right? That happened 'cause of - us." She wanted to say 'you', but that was unfair in more sense than one right now... even though it had been primarily Laurel's fault. But she did add, "And you're lucky your own brother didn't go through the same thing when the Carnies got to him." Being assaulted and hospitalised by associates of The CarnEvil Connection was, in fact, what had prompted Matty to take up wrestling training - he'd confided to Leanne he'd never be a liability to Laurel again, and Leanne had almost cried.
"Okay then, Malcolm Drake, Arcadia Chavez, Yoshihiro Ojima... we can handle them," insisted Laurel, "And they're all a lot more fucked than Kam."
"You can handle them, Ell... they're all your enemies. Not ours."
"Okay, Chaths!" continued Laurel, "You beat Chaths on the last FGA show, and Chaths is about as proper a headcase as you'll ever meet."
Leanne shook her head and pointed out, "Chaths wasn't tryna kill me..."
"You were in the ring with him, Ell. He was tryna kill you. Fuckin'... QED."
Leanne snorted in amusement. "What does that even mean?" she asked, and the words coming out of her own mouth surprised her. Some part of her must have wanted to change the subject.
"Means it's self-evident," muttered Laurel absently as she stubbed her cigarette out.
"No, I know what it means," said Leanne, "What I mean is, what does it mean? What does it stand for?"
Laurel turned to face her again, slowly, and suggested: "...it hasn't got a chair?"
After struggling to find a reply to that for several seconds, Leanne just shook her head and closed her mouth while Laurel picked a fleck of dried sick out of her hair. She grimaced at it and dropped it into the empty beer can she was using as an ashtray, then said, "Listen, Jonathan wants to talk to us before the show."
"To us, or to you?" asked Leanne hesitantly.
Laurel paused for a moment to think about. He hadn't actually specified. "To both of us, I'm sure," she said confidently.
"What about?"
"I've got an idea..." murmured Laurel.
There was a pause.
"...well?"
"Well what?" asked Laurel absently, rooting down the side of her bed.
"Are you gonna tell me, or what?"
"Oh," said Laurel, her voice muffled, "It's prob'ly about Kam, innit?"
"Yeah?"
Laurel didn't reply until she'd re-emerged, triumphantly holding half a bottle of stale cola. After a drink, she asked, "C'mon, how do Kameron an' Jonathan feel about each other?" And she offered the bottle across to Leanne, who politely declined.
Frowning a little at why she'd be asked something so obvious, and wondering whether it was a trick question, Leanne replied hesitantly, "...they hate each other's guts. They always have."
"Exactly," said Laurel, "Look at it like this. Jonathan's busy with this shit with Christum an' SalTal an' Savannah, right? But at the same time he's got HATE on his back. And Kameron and Daisuke both fuckin'... despise Jonathan. Like, mortally, as far as I can tell. They ain't gonna let up on him just because he's got Gods & Monsters to worry about. Fact it's the perfect time for HATE to strike, innit?"
"I... guess?"
Laurel nodded and said slyly, "An' we're a nice little distraction for Kam right now, aren't we..."
"Ooohh... no," said Leanne slowly and anxiously, "No, we ain't mercenaries, Ell. That ain't our fight. Why should we make it our fight? That just puts us in harm's way for not even any incentive."
"We're getting a Tag Team Championship shot in our debut match, aren't we?" grinned Laurel, "Sounds like incentive to me. Anyway, wasn't this the point when we got the band back together?" - 'the band' meaning The Asylum, the eight-strong faction which so many years ago had ended the wrestling company of which Kam was the poster boy and golden hero, Global Extreme Wrestling - and in 2013 reformed to keep AbominationZ from repeating the same mistake and destroying WARPED Wrestling. "We promised to save promotions from the factions that wanted to... to cannibalise 'em, right? But we didn't help EXODUS against LEGION last year, did we..."
"Yeah, 'cause we were barely managin' against AbominationZ. Fuck... we didn't have enough to protect everyone even then."
"Right... but now a new enemy rises in the land of exiles, y'know?" Laurel was beaming at this point, and she had that edge in her cold grey eyes that made Leanne shiver. "An' this time we got no AbominationZ to worry about..."
"Look, can't we go one step at a time?" pleaded Leanne. "We don't need some... big crusade, right? We're still tryin' to settle into EXODUS, and FGA... I mean, listen, if you wanna call up Rowan an' get the heavy artillery in, I'm leavin' that up to you, but... I don't wanna do anythin' that might put Lily in danger. Or Matty," she added, playing up the meaningfulness of that final word.
"Well... Let's just see what Jon has to say at the weekend before we make any decisions," Laurel conceded, although not convincingly enough for Leanne's tastes, "Hell, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he wants to talk about some'n else."
"I really, really hope so," said Leanne with the strain evident in her voice, "'Cause you've already got me about a fuckin' mile out my comfort zone with makin' me sign on with two more companies." A stretch of the truth in both cases; Laurel had negotiated with FGA as she described it (or charmed them as Leanne suspected) into entering Leanne into this year's Lion's Cup tournament - without consulting Leanne first. Of course, they'd had to call to confirm with her that she was interested, but that was the first Leanne knew of it. As for EXODUS, that had been more straightforward - Laurel had just badgered Leanne until she gave in.
"And it's workin', ain't it?" said Laurel pointedly, "You're in the Lion's Cup semifinals in FGA, we got a title shot in EXODUS..."
"Hah, an' I have to pretend to be confident when I'm prolly gonna blow 'em both..." said Leanne, screwing up her face, "I waltz into these companies, straight into big shots... nobody's gonna take me seriously. The other three teams must be lookin' at this tag match askin' why the fuck we're even in it."
Laurel regarded her for a moment, then asked, "Listen, Christum Furor's the World Champion, right?"
"Right?" sniffed Leanne.
"Well, you've beat him before, haven't you?"
"I eliminated him from a battle royale, Ell. That ain't the same." Not to mention, it was the body Christum Furor inhabited, but the man controlling it was very different back then...
"A battle royale you won," Laurel reminded her, "An' converted into a title you still hold. Tell them that. Tell 'em that to be the Commonwealth Champion you beat the current World Champion. That'll make 'em take you seriously."
Leanne considered this, then shook her head sadly. "...I'm not sure... you know what Riley said about me in FGA. About-" -she hesitated- "-me bein'... y'know. Cocky. Arrogant. I don't want people to think that..."
Laurel sighed. Leanne's insecurity did her head in... plus she had a loss to avenge to Riley Owens herself, after he'd pinned her tag team partner Annie Zellor in the finals of Dynamic Duos. She wasn't too concerned with wins and losses, but losing in the finals of the same tournament two years in a row... "Riley can eat a dick for sayin' that, Ell. He doesn't know you," she grunted in annoyance, "Nobody's gonna think you're arrogant for pointin' out that you hold a win over Christum Furor. It's just a fact."
Scanning her friend's eyes, Leanne asked shakily, "...are you sure?"
"Trust me. Most of EXODUS fuckin' loathes him anyway, right?"
"I guess..."
"An' you kick ass," said Laurel, getting animated and enthusiastic again, "You're my number one ninja, Ell. I know you can win Lion's Cup an' I know we can be EXODUS tag champs together."
Leanne bit her lip as she looked up at her. "...you think so?"
"I just said, I know so," replied Laurel, and she leaned over, calling out, "C'mon, give us a hug!"
And she wrapped her arms tightly around Leanne - who made a choking sound. "Oh my god, you fuckin' arsehole bitch! I've already had two showers today. Now I need another one."
"Well, I need one first," said Laurel firmly, still holding Leanne close, "I'm covered in sick."
"And worse..." mumbled Leanne under her breath.
"What was that?" asked Laurel innocently, "Didn't catch it."
"I said so am I, now," replied Leanne quickly, "You've just got your sick all over me, so I should get to go first."
"It's dry, Ell," replied Laurel, rolling her eyes, "Nothin' got on you. Stop spazzin' out."
"Germs will've, though."
"Oh, what?" sighed Laurel, "Germs get on you all the time, Ell. That's life. They get on you... bloody... walkin' down the street. I'm goin' in the shower right now. You're welcome to join me if you're that bothered, but no HLA, alright?"
"Oh my god, you're disgustin'!" cried Leanne, and finally pushed Laurel away. She shook her head, staring at the floor, then asked, "One serious question, though.... what the hell does QED stand for?"
"Well I haven't got a fuckin' clue, have I?" shrugged Laurel, pulling another cigarette from the packet. She checked the time on her phone, then blew out air through her mouth before tilting her head in Leanne's direction and suggesting, vaguely but optimistically, "Fancy a drink? I could really do with a hair of the dog..."